Seurat’s Depiction of Visual Order and Harmony

Georges Seurat (1859 – 1891) was a post-impressionist artist who painted Saturday on the Island of La Grande Jatte from 1884 to 1886. In this painting, and many others, he paints with dots, rather than strokes, which creates an effect called optic mixing. For instance, in the grass, he does not just use shades of green. Instead, he adds in yellows and pinks and blues. Upon close examination, we as the viewer can see these dots and extreme detail that Seurat utilizes, but from afar our eyes see one solid color. Seurat is described as a post-impressionist, because unlike his impressionist predecessors, he is not concerned with relaying his own sensations or emotions. Seurat paints what he sees in a more realistic naturalistic fashion and is not as interested in the emotional or spiritual dimensions of life. Through the comparison of A Saturday on the Island of La Grande Jatte to his previous works and other artists, we can see Seurat’s precise technique and style. He puts time and effort into his artwork which correlates to his desire to portray visual order and harmony. Rather than being didactic or displaying the emotional dynamics of nature and people, he is concerned with accurately depicting what he sees and allowing his subject to be believable. 

Georges Seurat, A Study for A Saturday on the Island of La Grande Jatte, 1884, oil on canvas, 27 3/4 x 41 in. (70.5 x 104.1 cm)

This painting is the focus of this curation. It represents Seurat’s interest in visual order and harmony. It’s naturalistic in a sense, yet so orderly that the trees don’t look very real upon close examination. This painting is similar to impressionism as it is a flattened, everyday scene of leisure. Many of the people in this painting are static and not dynamic and have a somewhat Egyptian look to them in side profile. It adds a scientific and rational heft to impressionism.

Georges Seurat, A Sunday on the Island of La Grande Jatte, 1884 – 1886, oil on canvas,
81 3/4 × 121 1/4 in. (207.5 × 308.1 cm)

This painting is Seurat’s work after a Study on A Sunday on the Island of La Grande Jatte. Seurat worked on this painting for multiple years as he continually went back to it to alter and amend it. He was so concerned with portraying what he was actually seeing that he took three years to perfect it. In this painting, Seurat’s dots that he paints with are more condensed and less brushy. The figures are more solidified and unified, which shows his emphasis on visual order and harmony rather than the emotional and spiritual aspect.

Claude Monet, Garden at Sainte-Adresse, 1867, Oil on canvas, 98.1 x 129.9 cm

Monet studied Japanese prints and modeled his paintings after the spacing out of horizon and landscape of the prints. The boats in this painting could possibly be bringing these Japanese prints Monet studied. Monet is representing the life of modern middle-class life but is representing this idea of the middle-class rather than painting what he merely sees. He is using his knowledge of the Japanese prints to then translate that to this painting of two wealthy people near a garden and being influenced by modern commerce. This is different than Seurat’s painting as he is representing what it life as a modern-middle class person is and he is using influences from Japanese printmaking. Similar to Seurat, this is a flattened, everyday scene of leisure, and he uses vibrant colors to portray modern life.

Paul Gauguin, Spirit of the Dead Watching, 1892, oil on canvas,
116.05 cm × 134.62 cm (45.6 in × 53 in)

Gauguin is fascinated by the exotic and is very much interested in primitivism. He has this false, idealistic idea that women of other cultures are more sexually intuitive and have a higher sex drive than the average European woman. Rather than being interested in the detail of what they look like, Gauguin is interested in what is happening in the spiritual existence. He sees modern life as bad and detrimental to mankind as it is alienating people and creating an inauthentic world. Seurat, on the other hand, is interested in the modern life and represents social harmony and order in that particular setting. He paints what he sees, whereas Gauguin paints the spiritual. While Seurat’s paintings represent social harmony and visual order, Gaugin’s are disharmonious, and we can interpret them as disorderly in a moral sense.

Claude Monet, Sunrise, 1872, oil on canvas, 48 cm x 63 cm (18.9 in x 24.8 in)

Similar to Seurat, Monet is painting a scene, a moment in time. Monet is concerned with painting the impression of the scene and he shows his interest in how a painting can capture the mood of the moment. This differs from Seurat’s style, as Seurat spends years and hours perfecting his artwork. Seurat is concerned on making the scene look real and orderly and planned. However, this painting of Monet’s is more frantic and encapsulates one second in time that quickly passes.

Edgar Degas, The Dance Class, 1874, oil on canvas, 32 7/8 x 30 3/8 in. (83.5 x 77.2 cm)

Degas paints this because he finds affinity between himself as a painter and ballet dancers. He harps on this idea that art is labor and work, and you have to work hard to get better at it, which makes him similar to ballet dancers. This skill and work ethic that Degas has can correspond to Seurat’s multiple attempts at perfecting A Saturday on La Grande Jatte. Seurat was scientifically attempting to represent order and harmony, and he kept revising his painting to make it nearly perfect. Just as a ballet dancer works to perfect certain positions and movements, an artist needs to practice in his profession.

Ti Watching a Hippopotamus Hunt, c. 2510 – 2460 BCE, painted limestone

Seurat was interested in Egyptian art, which can be seen in the way he painted people in A Sunday on La Grande Jatte in profile. When the Egyptians painted people in profile, their bodies don’t look natural as their stance looks uncomfortable and their dimensions are off. Seurat, on the other hand, paints what he sees of the people. The ancient Egyptians valued harmony among their people and order of government, as there was always a Pharaoh in place, which correlates to Seurat’s interest in order and harmony.